Lot 37: ROBERT WEIR ALLAN, R.S.W. 1852-1942

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Description: signed and dated l.l.: Robert W. Allan 1907; inscribed l.r. Nikko. Japan; inscribed on an artist's label pasted to the reverse: Entrance to the Temple/ at Nikko, Japan/ Robert W. Allan R.W.S./ 62 Buckingham Gate/ London

watercolour

THE ENTRANCE TO THE TEMPLE AT NIKKO, JAPAN

Notes: The two watercolours offered as this lot and the following lot were both made during Robert Weir Allan's visit to Japan in 1907 at the religious centre of Nikko, a complex of temples, shrines and mausoleums of Buddhist and Shinto origin. The Yomeimon Gate depicted in The Entrance of the Temple at Nikko is one of the portals to the mausoleum dedicated to Iyeyasu, the 1st Shogun of the Tokugawa Dynasty.

Allan's Japanese watercolours express the influence of Japonisme which Edward Atkinson Hornel had shown in his paintings of Japanese girls of the mid 1890s and by James Abbot McNeil Whistler in the oriental simplicity of his landscapes and decorations.

Provenance: Miss Muntz, until 1924 when bequethed to Edith Thorne-Waite;
London, Fine Art Society, June 1979;
Private collection

Dimensions: 51 by 35 cm. ; 20 by 14 in.